Wales First Minister Vaughan Gething Resigns After Government Walkout

First Minister of Wales, Vaughan Gething addresses the audience at the Welsh Labour manifesto launch at the Llay Miners Institute in Wrexham, Wales, on June 21, 2024. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Vaughan Gething has resigned as first minister of Wales after four members of his government quit in protest over his leadership.

Mr. Gething, who replaced Mark Drakeford as first minister in March in a Welsh Labour leadership contest, has been embroiled in a series of scandals which he denies.

However, on Tuesday the resigning ministers, including his former leadership rival Jeremy Miles, said Mr. Gething had to go to restore confidence in the Welsh Government.

‘Personally Bruised’

In his resignation statement, Mr. Gething, who is Wales’s first black leader, said he will now discuss a timetable for the election of new leader.

“To those in Wales who look like me, many of whom I know feel personally bruised and worried by this moment, I know that our country can be better. I know that cannot happen without us,” he said.

“There will, and there must be, a government that looks like the country it serves,” he added.

“A growing assertion that some kind of wrongdoing has taken place has been pernicious, politically motivated and patently untrue,” he said.

“In 11 years as a minister, I have never ever made a decision for personal gain. I have never ever misused or abused my ministerial responsibilities,” he added.

Mr. Miles told Mr. Gething, “The events of the last few months including your loss of the confidence vote in the Senedd, have been incredibly painful.”

“It’s essential that we begin to repair the damage immediately, and I have reached the conclusion very regrettably that this cannot happen under your leadership.

“I can’t see any way forward for us which allows us to get on with job we are elected to do, without you standing down.”

Allegations

Mr. Gething has faced questions over a £200,000 donation to his Welsh Labour leadership campaign from the Dauson Environmental Group, which is owned by David Neal, who has twice been convicted of environmental offences.

The sum is understood to be the largest individual donation in Welsh Government history.

There have also been a series of rows including whether Mr. Gething may have deleted text messages during the COVID-19 pandemic. He led Wales’s health response until 2021.

Mr. Gething denied the messages contradicted the evidence he had given to the COVID Inquiry, adding that the messages did not relate to pandemic decision making but “comments that colleagues make to and about each other.”

He subsequently sacked his minister for social partnership, Hannah Blythyn, following the leak of a text message to the Nation.Cymru news website which she denies having written. Nation.Cymru also denied she was the source of the leak.

In May, he lost a vote of no confidence in the Senedd, though he vowed to remain.

PA Media contributed to this report.